The Call

It's Saturday morning and I'm writing from the Rogue Valley in southern Oregon. Our oldest daughter, Aimee, is the children's pastor at Bethel Church in Medford, OR. We are enjoying our visit with Aimee, her husband Jason, Madelyn, Elise and JJ. Geographically, this is a beautiful part of the state. Yesterday we toured their church building. It is on one of the hills that surround the valley and the view is quite spectacular. Bethel is a wonderful, growing church and Aimee and her family plan on putting down deep roots here. They moved here from a very difficult church situation in northern California and I am so happy that they are happy and filled with such optimism for the future.

The hard thing about ministry is that inevitably, a lot of distance separates families. Later this summer, Josh and Kelly (our second son), will leave for two years in South Africa. Aimee and her family live in Oregon and our oldest son, lives in Springfield, MO. With us in St. Louis, visiting our children and grandchildren means travel. Our parents live in Colorado Springs, CO, and Columbus, OH. For our three oldest children who are involved in full time ministry, they are the 4th generation of ministers. My grandfather and Kathy's grandfather were pastors. Kathy's dad is a pastor, Kathy, her brother Kent, and I are pastors, and now our three oldest are all full time ministers. On this vacation, we have been able to visit Kathy's parents and sister in Colorado Springs, her brother Kent and his family in Sacramento, CA and now Aimee and her family in Medford, OR.

I know that all of us wish we could live closer together. But would any of us trade what we're doing for less distance? I doubt it. There is a "call" to ministry that will not let you do anything else. I don't know how many times I have decided it was time to do something else, only to realize that I could never set aside the "call." So for now, we relish each moment that we have together, we take advantage of technology to exchange pictures, web cam images, telephone calls and emails, and know that all of us are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing.